Wyld Hair On A Tangent Group -FULL (Page 10)

Maybe we're the only ones that are thawed out at the moment.  Though I think that's about to change.

Know what you mean about cities with potential that fall flat on their face, Dustin.  I grew up in Jackson, MS.  It's been the model on how NOT to go about urban revitalization and economic development.  There are actually some cool things starting up right now, but it's just so painfully slow thanks our lovely city leaders.  Although, the city council meetings usually are good for some entertainment.  A fist fight actually broke out at one once.  Between city council members no less.

One more year until I'm fully vested and can take all my retirement if I leave, and one more year until my wife has her full teaching license and can go anywhere (hopefully).  Not that we're sitting on go ready to move, but it's good to have that freedom.

Rochelle,

Computer + Smoke = Serious Problems.

Hope you had a backup of your files.

Take care

YouYou

Is a person living in Maine considererd as Southener??? Andrew, what do you think about that?

Rochelle's computer turned into a toast, MaoTeddie was bowing out (wanted to send him an email - he put something on his blog, and that does not sound very good), Fathlete, sjf21 and jsbean have never been very active, I don't know what happend to Vic and Rame.

I will definitly have a look at the recent posts over the weekend. But I have to admit as well, that I am trying a little bit to limit my computer time.

Take care

YouYou

There's certainly a "gift" that some people have.  Namely body type.  Look at Phelps.  His upper body is insanely long in relation to his legs, and he's got loooong monkey arms.  That means he's going get an extremely long pull, which is a lot more propulsion per stroke.  Then it also helps that he spends 10k+ yards in the pool each day and has lat muscles that look like jet fighter wings.  It also helps that some people feel as naturally balanced in the water as they do walking on land.

I don't really know or think there is a point in the stroke where you gain the most speed.  It's sort of a sum of the parts kind of thing, but with a twist.  Hmmm... how to make this make sense.  Lets say you've got four parts to the stroke: entry, catch, pull, follow through, and the sum of that equals speed.  1+1+1+1=4.  However, let's say you don't follow through... however, because you don't follow through you've got to under rotate and you lose your entry point.  This also may have an adverse effect on your catch as your arm may be out of position.  So now, because you simple didn't follow through, you're at 0 (entry)+.5 (catch)+1 follow through+ 0 follow through = 1.5.  Fuzzy, made up numbers, but I'm what I'm trying to say is one bad element of your stroke causes problems elswhere, and it hurts your speed much more than you think. 

As for rotation... go stand under a door frame, on hand by your side, and just raise the other one straight up.  Don't turn your body in anyway, just raise your hand.  Now, turn at the hips and reach that hand up.  When I do it, I get another hand length in how "high up" my finger tips are.  However, it's more than just the extra distance to pull.  You should feel a stretch in your lats.  That's exactly where the power is going to come from.  If you rotate and get that reach, you're going to pull with your lats, not just your shoulders.

As for entry... are you reaching out to the side.   When doing the door frame thing above, move your arm out to the side and look how much reach you lose.  A side entry is also gonna kill the rest of your stroke.  Some people go to far out, some people cross their center line, and it's hard to know what you're doing if someone doesn't point it out to you.

As for follow through... if you stop just above the hip, and I see that a lot, then you've got to cut the reach short on the other arm, so you're double cheating yourself.  When you push past your hip (with my monkey arms I tend to get mid thigh), you've got to engage the triceps and back of the shoulders.  That's probably what you were feeling.  A good stroke starts with a bunch of power from the lats with a solid finish from your triceps and shoulders.

Then there's catch... are you "grabbing" the most water all the way through, not just with your hand, but your fore arm as well.

Then the pull... are you getting what you can out of it or are you giving up on the lats to early by having a straight arm pointed at the bottom of the pull.  Are you flailing your arm out. 

I use the following drills to work on this stuff:

Pull buoy-- work on my rotation, reach, and followthrough

Single arm--exaggerates the reach, isolates rotation

Catch up-- follow through

Fist-- Catch, believe it or not.  Helps find that extra catch with the fore arm

Finger tip-- gets that elbow up

Paddles-- helps control my catch throughout the pull

Oh, and on top of all that, you gotta have a kick that doesn't throw it all out of balance and do more harm than good

It's why I like drills so much.  There's so much going on in a swim stroke that you HAVE to break it down and work on things individually.

I think I heard that Mark Sanchez was in b-ham getting something done at that clinic.

Swimming is just so much different than training to ride or run in that it's a gazillion times more technical.  Sure, there are technical aspects to riding your bike, like fit and not "pedaling in squares", and to your gait in running.  But for the most part, the way to get better at those two disciplines is to do them more often and longer.  Yes, it can get a little more complicated than that, but really, when somebody asks how they can get faster on the bike, the simple and usually best answer is, "ride your bike, a lot, for about two years, then notice how much faster you've gotten."  You can throw in RPE, HR, power, etc.  But it really all boils down to the fact that you are riding and running a lot.

Swimming is just a different animal.  You've got to devote as much time to your form as you do the distance of your workouts.  Correcting a stroke flaw can provide more benefit to your swim than swimming the wrong way for 15k yards a week.  For weaker swimmers, training in the pool should almost exclusively be about finding efficiency and form.  At least that's my opinion.  You can take care of your fitness in training on the bike and run, but that's not gonna matter much if you get out of the water feeling like you almost drowned.

And it's not that hard to find it.  It just takes a lot of patience, and being humble enough to get in the water and look like a fool for a while.  Who cares, though.  You're in the water looking like a fool so you can be ready to bike and run afterward.  Most people won't even entertain the idea of doing something that hard.  And soon enough, the groove will come.  Then you'll be whining about the 10x100 descends after your kick drills, and dreading the 8x200 coming up in two days.  I know, because as much as I truly love the water (and am really missing it right now), I will not hesitate to be a whiny little ***** over my swim workouts.

And in other news... I'm gonna be the race director for a mini-sprint/beginner triathlon that our tri club hosts each May.  I'm not entirely sure I know what I just got myself into.